


"B"

by Omegarose



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, batfam, building a family from bits and broken pieces, ohana bitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 19:41:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21151133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omegarose/pseuds/Omegarose
Summary: Dick Grayson had a family. Barbara had a father. Jason Todd had a mother. Tim Drake had parents. Cassandra Cain had a father. Stephanie Brown had a mother. Damian al Ghul-Wayne had a mother and a grandfather and an aunt. Duke Thomas had a mother and a father.Yet they were still a family.





	"B"

Dick Grayson had a family.

He had a father, and a mother, and an uncle, and an aunt, and a cousin.

Bruce Wayne became his guardian and mentor when Dick’s family died. He wasn’t there to replace them--Alfred had assured Dick of that the very first day he was at the mansion--but it wasn’t like his impact on Dick’s life could be ignored. He wasn’t his _ dad _...but he was something like a dad. 

Bruce worked for a little while, but it didn’t fit like Dick wanted it to. Bruce was _ Bruce _ to him.

A little while after he became Batman’s sidekick he attempted “Bats” but he couldn’t call Bruce that in public, and too many other people already called him that. Besides, Bruce wasn’t really _ Bats _ to him.

Somehow he ended up on “B”. It was something he could call both Batman and Bruce, and something that was a more personal. A nickname only he had given him.

“B” was akin to “dad”. Dick knew it, and Bruce knew it.

All the rest of the kids picked up on it and started using it too.

Barbara only used it in costume, or when indicating that something was a costumed issue. She knew what it meant to Dick and Bruce, and she was respectful of it. Still, she knew Bruce appreciated it.

Jason took a little while longer to learn about the meaning behind “B”. He heard Barbara use it in costume, and carried it over into civilian time. It was two years before Dick was back on good enough terms with Bruce to get close to Jason, and it was a few months after that when Dick finally told him how he had settled on “B”. Jason still used it, but he had a new appreciation for it. He now could tell how much it meant to Bruce.

Tim, of course, figured it out all on his own. Before he was Robin he knew about “B”, but it wasn’t until after when he first used it and Bruce flinched did he realize the significance. It took Dick persuading him that it was okay, that Bruce wouldn’t mind. Tim was one of them, even if he wasn’t part of the household like Dick and Jason had been, like Barbara was. It took a few months to become regular, but soon Tim was using “B” too. It didn’t stop Bruce’s heart from hurting but it did help.

Cassandra knew what “B” meant immediately. It was said differently than Bruce or Brucie, it was warmer and loving even when irritation tainted everything. Bruce had been so kind to her that she used it as soon as she knew how too. When she did, she saw Bruce bloom with happy-love-amazement.

Stephanie was much the same as Barbara, as she only used it while in costume. She didn’t have enough interaction with Bruce outside of it, and her connection to Tim made it weird. It wasn’t until Cass explained it to her that she realized why it felt weird when they were in their civvies.

Damian took the longest to figure it out, and was the least likely to use it. _ He _ was the only with a proper claim to use “Dad” or “Father”, not that Bruce would have been upset if any of the others had used them. It was really on after Bruce came back and insisted that Damian couldn’t call him “Father” on the field. It wasn’t that he didn’t want him to, it was just a liability. Too many connections could be made to the stiffly formal “Dami Wayne” that the public knew. So on the field, Damian adapted “B” sometimes. It was quicker than Batman, he defended. Dick thought it was adorable. Bruce did too.

Duke knew there was some significance behind “B” because of Bruce’s reaction when Cass would spare the letter, and Damian would casually say it on patrol. It was the spare smile, the less-angry-than-normal sounding grunts. He mentioned to Tim how weird it was, and he explained what it meant. How Dick had come up with it when he was only a little kid, and how it had stuck. So Duke gave it a swing. It was better than Bats, which everybody and their cousin seemed to call him in costume. It garnered the same sort of grunt as when Damian used it. So Duke decided to keep using it, at least in costume.

They were a family, of sorts, even if it wasn’t a very traditional one. They all had families of their own, somewhere or at some time past. They needed a word of their own that meant “dad” and “father” and “mentor” and “foster father” and “partner” and “role model”, all rolled into one. And they found that.

**Author's Note:**

> Also on tumblr at https://fandumb-thoughts.tumblr.com/


End file.
